arXiv subjects

Elisa G. M. Ferreira

Publications and source records attributed to Elisa G. M. Ferreira.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Bayesian and frequentist investigation of prior effects in EFTofLSS analyses of full-shape BOSS and eBOSS data

Previous studies based on Bayesian methods have shown that the constraints on cosmological parameters from the Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) full-shape data using the Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structure (EFTofLSS) depend on the choice of prior on the EFT nuisance parameters. In this work, we explore this prior dependence by adopting a frequentist approach based on the profile likelihood method, which is inherently independent of priors, considering data from BOSS, eBOSS and Planck. We find that the priors on the EFT parameters in the Bayesian inference are informative and that prior volume effects are important. This is reflected in shifts of the posterior mean compared to the maximum likelihood estimate by up to 1.0 σ (1.6 σ) and in a widening of intervals informed from frequentist compared to Bayesian intervals by factors of up to 1.9 (1.6) for BOSS (eBOSS) in the baseline configuration, while the constraints from Planck are unchanged. Our frequentist confidence intervals give no indication of a tension between BOSS/eBOSS and Planck. However, we find that the profile likelihood prefers extreme values of the EFT parameters, highlighting the importance of combining Bayesian and frequentist approaches for a fully nuanced cosmological inference. We show that the improved statistical power of future data will reconcile the constraints from frequentist and Bayesian inference using the EFTofLSS.

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arXiv2023

A lensed radio jet at milli-arcsecond resolution II: Constraints on fuzzy dark matter from an extended gravitational arc

Using a single gravitational lens system observed at $\lesssim5$ milli-arcsecond resolution with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), we place a lower bound on the mass of the fuzzy dark matter (FDM) particle, ruling out $m_χ\leq 4.4\times10^{-21}~\mathrm{eV}$ with a 20:1 posterior odds ratio relative to a smooth lens model. We generalize our result to non-scalar and multiple-field models, such as vector FDM, with $m_{χ,\mathrm{vec}} > 1.4 \times 10^{-21}~\mathrm{eV}$. Due to the extended source structure and high angular resolution of the observation, our analysis is directly sensitive to the presence of granule structures in the main dark matter halo of the lens, which is the most generic prediction of FDM theories. A model based on well-understood physics of ultra-light dark matter fields in a gravitational potential well makes our result robust to a wide range of assumed dark matter fractions and velocity dispersions in the lens galaxy. Our result is competitive with other lower bounds on $m_χ$ from past analyses, which rely on intermediate modelling of structure formation and/or baryonic effects. Higher resolution observations taken at 10 to 100 GHz could improve our constraints by up to 2 orders of magnitude in the future.

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arXiv2023

Restoring cosmological concordance with early dark energy and massive neutrinos?

The early dark energy (EDE) solution to the Hubble tension comes at the cost of an increased clustering amplitude that has been argued to worsen the fit to galaxy clustering data. We explore whether freeing the total neutrino mass $M_ν$, which can suppress small-scale structure growth, improves EDE's fit to galaxy clustering. Using Planck Cosmic Microwave Background and BOSS galaxy clustering data, a Bayesian analysis shows that freeing $M_ν$ does not appreciably increase the inferred EDE fraction $f_{\rm EDE}$: we find the 95% C.L. upper limits $f_{\rm EDE}<0.092$ and $M_ν<0.15\,{\rm eV}$. Similarly, in a frequentist profile likelihood setting (where our results support previous findings that prior volume effects are important), we find that the baseline EDE model (with $M_ν=0.06\,{\rm eV}$) provides the overall best fit. For instance, compared to baseline EDE, a model with $M_ν=0.24\,{\rm eV}$ maintains the same $H_0$(km/s/Mpc)=(70.08, 70.11, respectively) whilst decreasing $S_8$=(0.837, 0.826) to the $Λ$CDM level, but worsening the fit significantly by $Δχ^2=7.5$. For the datasets used, these results are driven not by the clustering amplitude, but by background modifications to the late-time expansion rate due to massive neutrinos, which worsen the fit to measurements of the BAO scale.

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arXiv2022

Resolving the Hubble tension with Early Dark Energy

Early dark energy (EDE) offers a solution to the so-called Hubble tension. Recently, it was shown that the constraints on EDE using Markov Chain Monte Carlo are affected by prior volume effects. The goal of this paper is to present constraints on the fraction of EDE, $f_\mathrm{EDE}$, and the Hubble parameter, $H_0$, which are not subject to prior volume effects. We conduct a frequentist profile likelihood analysis considering Planck cosmic microwave background, BOSS full-shape galaxy clustering, DES weak lensing, and SH0ES supernova data. Contrary to previous findings, we find that $H_0$ for the EDE model is in statistical agreement with the SH0ES direct measurement at $\leq 1.7\,σ$ for all data sets. For our baseline data set (Planck + BOSS), we obtain $f_\mathrm{EDE} = 0.087\pm 0.037$ and $H_0 = 70.57 \pm 1.36\, \mathrm{km/s/Mpc}$ at $68\%$ confidence limit. We conclude that EDE is a viable solution to the Hubble tension.

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arXiv2022

New constraint on Early Dark Energy from Planck and BOSS data using the profile likelihood

A dark energy-like component in the early universe, known as early dark energy (EDE), is a proposed solution to the Hubble tension. Currently, there is no consensus in the literature as to whether EDE can simultaneously solve the Hubble tension and provide an adequate fit to the data from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure of the universe. In this work, we deconstruct the current constraints from the Planck CMB and the full-shape clustering data of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) to understand the origin of different conclusions in the literature. We use two different analyses, a grid sampling and a profile likelihood, to investigate whether the current constraints suffer from volume effects upon marginalization and are biased towards some values of the EDE fraction, $f_\mathrm{EDE}$. We find that $f_\mathrm{EDE}$ allowed by the data strongly depends on the particular choice of the other parameters of the model and that several choices of these parameters prefer larger values of $f_\mathrm{EDE}$ than in the Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis. This suggests that volume effects are the reason behind the disagreement in the literature. Motivated by this, we use a profile likelihood to analyze the EDE model and compute a confidence interval for $f_\mathrm{EDE}$, finding $f_\mathrm{EDE} = 0.072\pm 0.036$ ($68\%$ C.L.). This confidence interval is not subject to volume effects; thus, our approach yields more robust constraints on EDE and provides a powerful tool to understand whether EDE is a possible solution to the Hubble tension.

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arXiv2022

Testing synchrotron models and frequency resolution in BINGO 21 cm simulated maps using GNILC

To recover the 21 cm hydrogen line, it is essential to separate the cosmological signal from the much stronger foreground contributions at radio frequencies. The BINGO radio telescope is designed to measure the 21 cm line and detect BAOs using the intensity mapping technique. This work analyses the performance of the GNILC method, combined with a power spectrum debiasing procedure. The method was applied to a simulated BINGO mission, building upon previous work from the collaboration. It compares two different synchrotron emission models and different instrumental configurations, in addition to the combination with ancillary data to optimize both the foreground removal and recovery of the 21 cm signal across the full BINGO frequency band, as well as to determine an optimal number of frequency bands for the signal recovery. We have produced foreground emissions maps using the Planck Sky Model, the cosmological Hi emission maps are generated using the FLASK package and thermal noise maps are created according to the instrumental setup. We apply the GNILC method to the simulated sky maps to separate the Hi plus thermal noise contribution and, through a debiasing procedure, recover an estimate of the noiseless 21 cm power spectrum. We found a near optimal reconstruction of the Hi signal using a 80 bins configuration, which resulted in a power spectrum reconstruction average error over all frequencies of 3%. Furthermore, our tests showed that GNILC is robust against different synchrotron emission models. Finally, adding an extra channel with CBASS foregrounds information, we reduced the estimation error of the 21 cm signal. The optimisation of our previous work, producing a configuration with an optimal number of channels for binning the data, impacts greatly the decisions regarding BINGO hardware configuration before commissioning.

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arXiv2022

The BINGO project VIII: On the recoverability of the BAO signal on HI intensity mapping simulations

A new and promising technique for observing the Universe and study the dark sector is the intensity mapping of the redshifted 21cm line of neutral hydrogen (HI). The BINGO radio telescope will use the 21cm line to map the Universe in the redshift range $0.127 \le z \le 0.449$, in a tomographic approach, with the main goal of probing BAO. This work presents the forecasts of measuring the transversal BAO signal during the BINGO Phase 1 operation. We use two clustering estimators, the two-point angular correlation function (ACF) and the angular power spectrum (APS), and a template-based method to model the ACF and APS estimated from simulations of the BINGO region and extract the BAO information. The tomographic approach allows the combination of redshift bins to improve the template fitting performance. We find that each clustering estimator shows different sensitivities to specific redshift ranges, although both of them perform better at higher redshifts. In general, the APS estimator provides slightly better estimates, with smaller uncertainties and larger probability of detection of the BAO signal, achieving $\gtrsim 90$\% at higher redshifts. We investigate the contribution from instrumental noise and residual foreground signals and find that the former has the greater impact, getting more significant as the redshift increases, in particular the APS estimator. Indeed, including noise in the analysis increases the uncertainty up to a factor of $\sim 2.2$ at higher redshifts. Foreground residuals, in contrast, do not significantly affect our final uncertainties. In summary, our results show that, even including semi-realistic systematic effects, BINGO has the potential to successfully measure the BAO scale in radio frequencies. (Abridged)

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arXiv2022

The BINGO Project V: Further steps in Component Separation and Bispectrum Analysis

Observing the neutral hydrogen distribution across the Universe via redshifted 21cm line intensity mapping constitutes a powerful probe for cosmology. However, the redshifted 21cm signal is obscured by the foreground emission from our Galaxy and other extragalactic foregrounds. This paper addresses the capabilities of the BINGO survey to separate such signals. Specifically, this paper looks in detail at the different residuals left over by foreground components, shows that a noise-corrected spectrum is unbiased, and shows that we understand the remaining systematic residuals by analyzing nonzero contributions to the three-point function. We use the generalized needlet internal linear combination, which we apply to sky simulations of the BINGO experiment for each redshift bin of the survey. We present our recovery of the redshifted 21cm signal from sky simulations of the BINGO experiment, including foreground components. We test the recovery of the 21cm signal through the angular power spectrum at different redshifts, as well as the recovery of its non-Gaussian distribution through a bispectrum analysis. We find that non-Gaussianities from the original foreground maps can be removed down to, at least, the noise limit of the BINGO survey with such techniques. Our component separation methodology allows us to subtract the foreground contamination in the BINGO channels down to levels below the cosmological signal and the noise, and to reconstruct the 21cm power spectrum for different redshift bins without significant loss at multipoles $20 \lesssim \ell \lesssim 500$. Our bispectrum analysis yields strong tests of the level of the residual foreground contamination in the recovered 21cm signal, thereby allowing us to both optimize and validate our component separation analysis. (Abridged)

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arXiv2022

The BINGO Project III: Optical design and optimisation of the focal plane

The BINGO telescope was designed to measure the fluctuations of the 21-cm radiation arising from the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen and aims to measure the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) from such fluctuations, therefore serving as a pathfinder to future deeper intensity mapping surveys. The requirements for the Phase 1 of the projects consider a large reflector system (two 40 m-class dishes in a crossed-Dragone configuration), illuminating a focal plane with 28 horns to measure the sky with two circular polarisations in a drift scan mode to produce measurements of the radiation in intensity as well as the circular polarisation. In this paper we present the optical design for the instrument. We describe the intensity and polarisation properties of the beams and the optical arrangement of the horns in the focal plane to produce a homogeneous and well-sampled map after the end of Phase 1. Our analysis provides an optimal model for the location of the horns in the focal plane, producing a homogeneous and Nyquist sampled map after the nominal survey time. We arrive at an optimal configuration for the optical system, including the focal plane positioning and the beam behavior of the instrument. We present an estimate of the expected side lobes both for intensity and polarisation, as well as the effect of band averaging on the final side lobes. The cross polarisation leakage values for the final configuration allow us to conclude that the optical arrangement meets the requirements of the project. We conclude that the chosen optical design meets the requirements for the project in terms of polarisation purity, area coverage as well as homogeneity of coverage so that BINGO can perform a successful BAO experiment. We further conclude that the requirements on the placement and r.m.s. error on the mirrors are also achievable so that a successful experiment can be conducted.(Abridged)

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arXiv2022

The Diversity of Core Halo Structure in the Fuzzy Dark Matter Model

In the fuzzy dark matter (FDM) model, gravitationally collapsed objects always consist of a solitonic core located within a virialised halo. Although various numerical simulations have confirmed that the collapsed structure can be described by a cored NFW like density profile, there is still disagreement about the relation between the core mass and the halo mass. To fully understand this relation, we have assembled a large sample of cored haloes based on both idealised soliton mergers and cosmological simulations with various box sizes. We find that there exists a sizeable dispersion in the core-halo mass relation that increases with halo mass, indicating that the FDM model allows cores and haloes to coexist in diverse configurations. We provide a new empirical equation for a core halo mass relation with uncertainties that can encompass all previously found relations in the dispersion, and emphasise that any observational constraints on the particle mass using a tight one-to-one core-halo mass relation should suffer from an additional uncertainty on the order of 50 % for halo masses $ \ge 10^9 (8 \times 10^{-23} eV/ (mc^2))^{3/2} M_\odot$. We suggest that tidal stripping may be one of the effects contributing to the scatter in the relation.

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arXiv2021

The BINGO Project II: Instrument Description

The measurement of diffuse 21-cm radiation from the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen (HI signal) in different redshifts is an important tool for modern cosmology. However, detecting this faint signal with non-cryogenic receivers in single-dish telescopes is a challenging task. The BINGO (Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations) radio telescope is an instrument designed to detect baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAOs) in the cosmological HI signal, in the redshift interval $0.127 \le z \le 0.449$. This paper describes the BINGO radio telescope, including the current status of the optics, receiver, observational strategy, calibration, and the site. BINGO has been carefully designed to minimize systematics, being a transit instrument with no moving dishes and 28 horns operating in the frequency range $980 \le ν\le 1260$ MHz. Comprehensive laboratory tests were conducted for many of the BINGO subsystems and the prototypes of the receiver chain, horn, polarizer, magic tees, and transitions have been successfully tested between 2018 - 2020. The survey was designed to cover $\sim 13\%$ of the sky, with the primary mirror pointing at declination $δ=-15^{\circ}$. The telescope will see an instantaneous declination strip of $14.75^{\circ}$. The results of the prototype tests closely meet those obtained during the modeling process, suggesting BINGO will perform according to our expectations. After one year of observations with a $60\%$ duty cycle and 28 horns, BINGO should achieve an expected sensitivity of 102 $μK$ per 9.33 MHz frequency channel, one polarization, and be able to measure the HI power spectrum in a competitive time frame.

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arXiv2021

The BINGO Project VII: Cosmological Forecasts from 21cm Intensity Mapping

The 21cm line of neutral hydrogen (HI) opens a new avenue in our exploration of the structure and evolution of the Universe. It provides complementary data to the current large-scale structure observations with different systematics, and thus it will be used to improve our understanding of the $Λ$CDM model. Among several radio cosmological surveys designed to measure this line, BINGO is a single-dish telescope mainly designed to detect baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) at low redshifts ($0.127< z<0.449$). Our goal is to assess the fiducial BINGO setup and its capabilities of constraining the cosmological parameters, and to analyze the effect of different instrument configurations. We used the Phase 1 fiducial configuration of the BINGO telescope to perform our cosmological forecasts. In addition, we investigated the impact of several instrumental setups, taking into account some instrumental systematics, and different cosmological models. Combining BINGO with Planck temperature and polarization data, the projected constraint improves from a $13\%$ and $25\%$ precision measurement at the $68\%$ confidence level with Planck only to $1\%$ and $3\%$ for the Hubble constant and the dark energy equation of state (EoS), respectively, within the wCDM model. Assuming a Chevallier-Polarski-Linder parameterization, the EoS parameters have standard deviations given by $σ_{w_0} = 0.30$ and $σ_{w_a} = 1.2$, which are improvements on the order of $30\%$ with respect to Planck alone. Also, we can access information about the HI density and bias, obtaining $\sim 8.5\%$ and $\sim 6\%$ precision, respectively, assuming they vary with redshift at three independent bins. The fiducial BINGO configuration will be able to extract significant cosmological information from the HI distribution and provide constraints competitive with current and future cosmological surveys. (Abridged)

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arXiv2021

Cosmic Filament Spin from Dark Matter Vortices

The recent observational evidence for cosmic filament spin on megaparsec scales (Wang et al, Nature Astronomy 5, 839-845 (2021)) demands an explanation in the physics of dark matter. Conventional collisionless cold particle dark matter is conjectured to generate cosmic filament spin through tidal torquing, but this explanation requires extrapolating from the quasi-linear regime to the non-linear regime. Meanwhile no alternative explanation exists in the context of ultra-light (e.g., axion) dark matter, and indeed these models would naively predict zero spin for cosmic filaments. In this Letter we study cosmic filament spin in theories of ultra-light dark matter, such as ultra-light axions, and bosonic and fermionic condensates, such as superfluids and superconductors. These models are distinguished from conventional particle dark matter models by the possibility of dark matter vortices. We take a model agnostic approach, and demonstrate that a collection of dark vortices can explain the data reported in Wang et al. Modeling a collection of vortices with a simple two-parameter analytic model, corresponding to an averaging of the velocity field, we find an excellent fit to the data. We perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis and find constraints on the number of vortices, the dark matter mass, and the radius of the inner core region where the vortices are distributed, in order for ultra-light dark matter to explain spinning cosmic filaments.

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arXiv2021

The BINGO Project IV: Simulations for mission performance assessment and preliminary component separation steps

The large-scale distribution of neutral hydrogen (HI) in the Universe is luminous through its 21 cm emission. The goal of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations -- BINGO -- radio telescope is to detect baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) at radio frequencies through 21 cm intensity mapping (IM). The telescope will span the redshift range 0.127 $< z <$ 0.449 with an instantaneous field-of-view of $14.75^{\circ} \times 6.0^{\circ}$. In this work we investigate different constructive and operational scenarios of the instrument by generating sky maps as they would be produced by the instrument. In doing this we use a set of end-to-end IM mission simulations. The maps will additionally be used to evaluate the efficiency of a component separation method (GNILC). We have simulated the kind of data that would be produced in a single-dish IM experiment such as BINGO. According to the results obtained, we have optimized the focal plane design of the telescope. In addition, the application of the GNILC method on simulated data shows that it is feasible to extract the cosmological signal across a wide range of multipoles and redshifts. The results are comparable with the standard principal component analysis method.

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arXiv2021

The BINGO Project I: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations

Observations of the redshifted 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen (HI) are a new and powerful window of observation that offers us the possibility to map the spatial distribution of cosmic HI and learn about cosmology. BINGO (Baryon Acoustic Oscillations [BAO] from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations) is a new unique radio telescope designed to be one of the first to probe BAO at radio frequencies. BINGO has two science goals: cosmology and astrophysics. Cosmology is the main science goal and the driver for BINGO's design and strategy. The key of BINGO is to detect the low redshift BAO to put strong constraints in the dark sector models. Given the versatility of the BINGO telescope, a secondary goal is astrophysics, where BINGO can help discover and study Fast Radio Bursts (FRB) and other transients, Galactic and extragalactic science. In this paper, we introduce the latest progress of the BINGO project, its science goals, describing the scientific potential of the project in each science and the new developments obtained by the collaboration. We introduce the BINGO project and its science goals and give a general summary of recent developments in construction, science potential and pipeline development obtained by the BINGO collaboration in the past few years. We show that BINGO will be able to obtain competitive constraints for the dark sector, and also that will allow for the discovery of several FRBs in the southern hemisphere. The capacity of BINGO in obtaining information from 21-cm is also tested in the pipeline introduced here. There is still no measurement of the BAO in radio, and studying cosmology in this new window of observations is one of the most promising advances in the field. The BINGO project is a radio telescope that has the goal to be one of the first to perform this measurement and it is currently being built in the northeast of Brazil. (Abridged)

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arXiv2021

The BINGO Project VI: HI Halo Occupation Distribution and Mock Building

BINGO (Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations.) is a radio telescope designed to survey from 980 MHz to 1260 MHz, observe the neutral Hydrogen (HI) 21-cm line and detect BAO (Baryon Acoustic Oscillation) signal with Intensity Mapping technique. Here we present our method to generate mock maps of the 21-cm Intensity Mapping signal covering the BINGO frequency range and related test results. (Abridged)

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arXiv2021

Narrowing the mass range of Fuzzy Dark Matter with Ultra-faint Dwarfs

Fuzzy dark matter (FDM) is an attractive dark matter candidate motivated by small scale problems in astrophysics and with a rich phenomenology on those scales. We scrutinize the FDM model, more specifically the mass of the FDM particle, through a dynamical analysis for the Galactic ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies. We use a sample of 18 UFDs to place the strongest constraints to date on the mass of the FDM particle, updating on previous bounds using a subset of the sample used here. We find that most of the sample UFDs prefer a FDM particle mass heavier than $10^{-21}\mathrm{eV}$. In particular, Segue 1 provides the strongest constraint, with $m_ψ=1.1^{+8.3}_{-0.7}\times10^{-19}\mathrm{eV}$. The constraints found here are the first that are compatible with various other independent cosmological and astrophysical bounds found in the literature, in particular with the latest bounds using the Lyman-$α$ forest. We also find that the constraints obtained in this work are not compatible with the bounds from luminous dwarf galaxies, as already pointed out in the previous work using UFDs. This could indicate that although a viable dark matter model, it might be challenging for the FDM model to solve the small scale problems.

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arXiv2021

Ultra-Light Dark Matter

Ultra-light dark matter (ULDM) is a class of dark matter models (DM) where DM is composed by bosons with masses ranging from $10^{-24}\, \mathrm{eV} < m < \mathrm{eV}$. These models have been receiving a lot of attention in the past few years given their interesting property of forming a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) or a superfluid on galactic scales. BEC and superfluidity are one of the most striking quantum mechanical phenomena manifest on macroscopic scales, and upon condensation, the particles behave as a single coherent state, described by the wavefunction of the condensate. The idea is that condensation takes place inside galaxies while outside DM behaves like a normal cold particle DM. This wave nature of DM on galactic scales that arise upon condensation can address some of the curiosities of the behaviour of DM on small scales while maintaining the successes of LCDM on large scales. There are many models in the literature that describe a DM component that condenses in galaxies. In this review, we are going to describe those models and classify them according to the different ways they achieve condensation. For that, we review the phenomena of BEC and superfluidity, and apply this knowledge to the DM in order to explain their construction and phenomenology. We describe the small scale challenges these models aim to solve and how ULDM alleviates them. These models present a rich phenomenology that is manifest in different astrophysical consequences. We review here the astrophysical and cosmological tests used to constrain those models, together with new and future observations that promise to test these models in different regimes. We finalize by showing some predictions that are a consequence of the wave nature of this component, like vortices and interference, that could represent a smoking gun in the search of these rich and interesting alternative class of DM. (Abridged)

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